»a nocte temporis«: Latin translation of the French expression »depuis la nuit des temps«, which means »from time immemorial«. A nod towards the past, towards what is changing, and especially also towards what remains unchanged.

After several years of activity as a soloist with conductors such as William Christie, Philippe Herreweghe, Hervé Niquet, Christophe Rousset, and many others, Reinoud Van Mechelen founded his own ensemble in 2016. His goal is to present historically informed music as well as to emotionally touch an as large audience as possible. Surrounded with musicians who share this passion he formed a nocte temporis.

The ensemble started as a chamber music ensemble with projects such as »Erbarme Dich« (arias for tenor and flute by J. S. Bach), »Pirame & Tisbé« (French cantatas of N. Clérambault) and »The Dubhlinn Gardens« (Irish eighteenth century music at the crossroads of folk and baroque music, conceived and co-led by Anna Besson). From 2018 onwards, they created larger programmes such as »Ich Habe Genug« (solo cantatas by J. S. Bach), »Un Noël Français« (pastorales by M. A. Charpentier) and »Les Larmes d’Orphée« (M. A. Charpentier). A nocte temporis grew into a baroque orchestra for »Dumesny and Jéliote«, the first two parts of the trilogy around the ›haute-contre‹ voice and »Clérambaut, dramatic genius« (with three orchestral works by Nicolas Clérambault for full orchestra, choir and soloists).

a nocte temporis has played at prestigious venues and festivals such as the Opéra de Lille, Festival Radio France (Montpellier), Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Festival de Saintes, the Chapelle Royale du Château de Versailles, MAfestival (Bruges), Bozar (Brussels), AMUZ (Antwerp), deSingel (Antwerp), Salle Gaveau (Paris), Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ (Amsterdam) and Wigmore Hall (London). In June 2019, the ensemble went on a short tour to China for the first time.